Sunday, May 23, 2010

Aaxa's New Laser Pico Projector

Aaxa's new L1 Laser Pico Projector is a little more expensive than most pico projectors, but a higher price doesn't necessarily mean higher quality. As CNET points out in their review of the projector, "Pico projectors were supposed to be the next big thing, but they haven't taken off as quickly as some might have thought. Part of the problem is that while they're tiny, they just can't produce a bright enough image to be that useful."

The new Aaxa Tech L1 laser pico projector is small - just 2.1 inches tall, 4.2 inches wide, .8 inches thick and weighs about 170 grams - and the battery provides you with 90 minutes of use. It has a 800 x 600 resolution, comes with a 2GB thumbdrive, and in turn, offers the ability to play files directly from a USB thumbdrive. It can display AVI, WMV, MP3, JPEG, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files.

The positive traits pretty much end there. You can connect the projector to your laptop with a VGA adapter that is included, however, the cable is not. There is no room for a memory card. The interface is awkward and not easy to use and according to CNET, the picture quality is awful. As they explain it, for that much of a price hike, you're going to expect better than average, but the new Aaxa projector runs just like any other old pico projector. They describe the picture as "noisy" with a shimmering effect.

In addition, you can't project an image more than 26 inches wide. When made bigger, the image loses its brightness and sharpness. However, CNET says the projector isn't bad, just nothing to get excited about. In their words, "...you can buy a half decent laptop or an iPad for about $600 and both will produce much better image quality."

The projector is an entry-level projector so with any luck, Aaxa's next model will be better...or at least less expensive.